Of late though, he was beginning to resent the emotional cost of managing his mother’s grief, his sister’s disappointment in her marriage, and his father’s spurious guilt, which would undoubtedly launch him into impulsive behavior and another scandal.
This cocoon he had been in for the last few weeks, with only Luca and Mimi and some work as his focus, had been a luxury he hadn’t known he needed.
Her breath warm against his neck, Mimi looked up. The smile was gone from her face, replaced by that shadow of a grief he knew too well. “Of course. I…like your mother. Maybe in another week? Hopefully I’ll be less of a wreck then.”
“You like my mother?” Renzo blurted out before he could stop himself. “In a week is more than I hoped for.” He ran his knuckles down her soft cheek. “I was ready to give you another month.”
“She was always kind to me. And with Pia, she never added fuel to the arguments or the drama. I understood her perspective that she wanted Santo to be happy and thought he was being trod over.”
“How are you so wise at such a young age?”
She laughed, and Renzo thought it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. “Practice, my pupil.” And then she giggled at her own joke. “You’re forgetting that I’m also very strategic. Your mother had four children. She might be a fount of important advice about babies. And I want Luca to know his family, to be surrounded by so much love that he never doubts it.”
“And you wonder why I insisted on marrying you?” he quipped. The sheer longing in her voice as she talked about Luca knowing love was…unmistakable. “You’re already a fierce mother to him.”
This time, the smile he wanted didn’t bloom. Nodding, she pulled back, her gaze skating everywhere but at him. And Renzo wondered where he had made a misstep in the last minute. “As for you being a wreck, it won’t get better unless you rest properly.”
“Wait, I forgot to ask.” She released his shirt and looked up. “What happened at your meeting? Why are you back so soon?”
“It got rescheduled,” he lied automatically.
“Lucky for me.” Her teasing only tightened the tension in his body. When he tried to pull his arm away, her clasp firmed.
“I need a shower,bella.”
Pulling herself up with her grip on his arm—which of course made her grimace—she leaned close, tucked her face in his chest and took a deep breath. “You smell fine to me. More than fine, in fact. You smell great. Always do.”
He shook his head, a short huff of exasperation escaping him. “Mimi…”
“Stay with me, Renzo.” Then, pushing the wild strands of hair out of her face, she patted the space beside her on the bed. “I was being stubborn and foolish earlier. I don’t want to be alone in this cavernous apartment. No, that’s not specific enough.” Her brown eyes shimmered with resolve. “I want to go to sleep with your arms around me.”
When he simply stared at her, her shoulders rounded in defeat. “You want me to beg? Is that it?”
“Of course not,” he said, moving up on the bed. If he lay down on the bed with her, he wasn’t sure he could hide his need from her. His body would betray him with one press of her slender curves against him. And he loathed the idea of coming on to her when she was in such a fragile state, when she was asking him for companionship and comfort.
He loathed how out of control he was near her. And this would not do. Not if he wanted a successful, amiable marriage. He couldn’t be at the mercy of his desires. Not now, not ever.
When she was ready for their relationship to move on to the next step, that was different. But as her husband, he could not deny her what she sought from him now.
“I have a few hours of work to get through.” He pressed a finger to her lips when she’d have protested. “But I’ll stay here until you fall asleep. Then shower and work,sì?”
“Grazie, Renzo,” she whispered.
Averting his gaze from hers, he scooted up the bed and pulled her into his side. Her palm came to rest on his abdomen, and it took everything he had to not fidget, to not scoop her completely into his arms. To not slide into the bed fully and spoon her from head to toe until she was engulfed in him.
Dio mio, he wasn’t even fond of cuddling, had never even tried it. But already, he liked holding her this way, even without satisfaction for his body’s torment.
He set his other hand to stroke her forehead. Soon her breathing deepened.
Tilting his head back against the headboard, he closed his eyes, running through all the work and family stuff piling up for him.
All the bullet points on his list evaded him, though. For he had never known the sweet contentment that filled him with Mimi’s hands tightly wrapped around his.
It shouldn’t have been so easy to settle into a rhythm over the next month, but they did. In just three days, Luca would be two months old. And each day, he was getting stronger and that much closer to coming home to them.
Four weeks since Mimi had moved to the penthouse, and it might as well have been four decades for how easily she and Renzo seemed to slot into each other’s lives with minimal adjustments.
Or maybe she shouldn’t be surprised, Mimi thought, given Renzo turned out to be the most accommodating man on the planet.
